The chapter opens with a soliloquy by Hirohito, in which he tells the audience that he has just learned that a female test subject escaped from the factory and ran off with three hundred men. He tells them that the loss of the subject means that the entire staff has been reduced to a skeleton crew, and that they have been unable to repair their relationship with the factory's management. He then asks the audience to confirm his numbers on a sheet of paper that the company has given him. The audience is shocked and confused, and he is unable to believe that he is being asked to leave the stage.